We interviewed three professional copywriters who gave us six pieces of advice to help you improve your landing page copy to drive more conversions and sales – let’s take a look at their most powerful tactics.

1. Get readers to take a *single* action

What’s the goal of landing page copy?

If you automatically thought conversion, you’re on the right track. However, our experts took it a step further.

To make it super-desirable to complete the form or take whatever single action the page is intended for.

Barry Feldman, Marketing Consultant, Copywriter and Owner of Feldman Creative, echoed that thought, stating every paragraph should drive the reader towards “the place where the mouse or finger is supposed to go.”

Whether it’s downloading an ebook, signing up for an email list, setting up a consultation, or clicking through to view available products, make sure you know your landing page’s call to action in-and-out – and then make sure that every single copywriting element is in alignment with that goal.

2. If you have more than one buyer persona, create (and test) multiple landing pages

Andy Zenkevich, Co-founder and Head of Product at Get A Copywriter, describes a buyer persona as “a profile of the client’s best customer.”

Ask yourself, who is the ideal person to use your product or service?

Once you know which (single) buyer persona you’re targeting, it’s much easier to write your entire landing page to compel that person to take action.

But what happens if you have several buyer personas and you’re not sure which might drive the most conversions? Here’s what Zenkevich recommends:

If there are several personas for your product or service, create a distinct, separate landing page for each of them, and target separate keywords.

Zenkevich notes that having distinct landing pages for different AdWords campaigns allows you to “target different personas with relevant copy,” but it also allows you to A/B test your landing pages to see which one performs the best – so you can learn who your true buyer persona really is.

Feldman recommends starting with an actionable word such as “get,” “learn,” “discover” or “enjoy.” And once you’ve set yourself up to speak to the value of the offer, he recommends following up your action-packed verbs with “the value the clicker shall receive.”

Button copy like “click here” or “download now” doesn’t communicate what you stand to gain by clicking. “Enjoy a free week—on us!” on the other hand, does.

5. Write only the words you need

Don’t get carried away talking about why your offer is so great.

“You need as many words as it takes to persuade the prospect, and not a word more,” Wiebe advised.

“If the conversion aims to trade an email address (and possibly some personal data) for content, you should be able to communicate the value of the soon-to-be-delivered content fast and effectively,” Feldman noted. “Be careful not to tax your reader in any way.”

Our experts were hesitant to give a specific ideal word count, noting that word count and paragraph length largely depends on the preferences of target customer – and where they are in the buying cycle.

As Wiebe explained, “The more your visitors know about their pains and your solution, the less you need to say about that, and the more you may need to say about your offer and why they must take it (e.g. social proof, urgency, scarcity).”

6. Test your landing pages strategically

Before you start rewriting your copy, Zenkevich explained that you should start by testing more technical details:

Do a few simple tests to make sure your page loads quickly and accurately on different browsers and across different devices.

Also be aware of more complex server-related issues. Though your page loads fine in the US, Zenkevich explained, there could be page speed issues in other areas of the world (depending on server neighborhood).

To keep on top of page performance issues, Zenkevich recommends uptime and performance monitoring tools such as UptimeRobot or Pingdom.

Now that you’ve eliminated technical problems, you can start thinking about A/B testing your copy – but be prepared to take a very deliberate approach. Your tests should always begin with a hypothesis that is informed by data.

As Wiebe explained, data-based approaches to A/B testing “increase your chances of understanding the results and using what you learn to grow your business, not just to run experiments.”

Summing it up in three simple points

Every piece of copy on your landing page should drive your prospect forward through the conversion path, closer to your goal.

Joanna Wiebe sums up all of the advice into three simple points:

Cut everything that doesn’t support the page goal.

Talk about the prospect, not about yourself.

And test, target or both.

Simple enough?

Over to you – what are your go-to copywriting tips and tricks? Please share them in the comments!

About Nicole Dieker

Nicole Dieker is a freelance writer and copywriter. She writes the "How A Freelance Writer Makes A Living" column for The Billfold, and her work has also appeared in The Toast, Yearbook Office, Boing Boing, The Penny Hoarder, and The Freelancer by Contently. Follow her on Twitter @HelloTheFuture.